Thank you to our Visitors

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck and I are busy clearing out of our rented apartment. This apartment has been so wonderful during the last seven months. Since it had many bedrooms, it allowed us to invite family and friends to visit with us in Cuenca.

We have been fortunate to have many people take us up on our offer.

Thank you:

Vanessa and Ricardo
Robin and Jim
Carol V.
Carolyn and Larry
Audrey and Jim
Portia and Paris
Karen and Randy
Vicki and Jeannie
Ruby and George
Sharon and Marshall
Judy and Brad
and
Linda and JoAnn

for sharing Cuenca with us.

We enjoyed your visits and according to the feedback we have received, you have found Cuenca as charming as we do.

After we release our apartment today, we will be camping out in our new condo. We have a bed, microwave and a coffee maker to help us survive for the next 10 days. We will begin to seriously furnish it when we return in December.

After today we will not have internet access. This is the final blog of our Cuenca, Ecuador adventure. We will be checking our email at Cuenca Internet (located at Luis Cordero 675 Y Presidente Cordova), so we will not be out of touch. Cuenca Internet was established about 6 weeks ago by our next door neighbors. It has very high speed internet.

If you would like to know more about Ecuador, here are a few links that you might be interested in:

Click here to view Washington Post photo slideshow of Ecuador

Click here to read Ecuador Forums

also, there is a group in Yahoo groups called Ecuador _Expats, check it out.

We will be back home in Richland, Washington on April 22 and we are looking forward to a summer in the desert.

Love,
Nancy and Chuck

Meeting the President

Dear Family and Friends,

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU WILL SEE WHILE ON THE SIGHTSEEING TOUR!

Chuck and I took our guests, Joann and Linda for the double decker sightseeing bus tour yesterday morning. As usual we were able to get good seats for the best viewing.



The views from the bus are always interesting and fun. The architecture is beautiful...





and the people are so fascinating to watch.







I believe the people on the street get as much enjoyment watching our tour bus as we get observing them.







We passed this church just as it was letting out. I love this church because it reminds me of an old mission in the Southwest.






The highlight of the tour is when the bus goes up to Turi so we can get a beautiful panoramic view of Cuenca.





No sooner than we arrived, when trucks and cars started arriving with military police and secret service body guards.






The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, got out of one of the vehicles and was surrounded by plain clothes security as he made his way to the viewing platform over looking Cuenca.



Along with the other spectators, we watched as the president viewed Cuenca with his family. President Correa is the man talking on the cell phone.






It was so exciting that we were able to get close enough to get some great photos of him.




In fact, the most exciting thing of all is that we were able to meet him and have photos made with him. When I went to shake his hand, I spoke to him in my weak Spanish. He said to me, "I speak English, where are you from?" So we chatted in English for a moment.



Here is a photo of President Correa chatting with our friend Linda. (Notice how she is clothing coordinated with him). They look like they are on the same team.


Chuck and I have taken several tour bus trips with our guests, but this one was the very best yet!!

Love,
Nancy and Chuck

Chilcatortora Tour - Part II

Dear Family and Friends

(A blog from Chuck)

I described a tour of the Chilcatortora community in Blog 28. Today, I will share photos of their cheese factory.



The Kanchik Kawsay cheese making facility is a community cooperative set up with assistance by
some French volunteers. Now that the community has a way to preserve their milk, they can sell cheese and butter at the Feria Libre in Cuenca on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Three types of cheese are produced in this factory: Queso Fresco, Mozzarella, and (a pleasant surprise) Queso Duro.










Here are the curds of the day's milking, draining.







And a by product - butter





The milk is pasteurized in this vat.




The Mozzarella molds are clean and ready for use.












And cheese is aging in the cellar.


We were very impressed with the Queso Duro, a round, pressed, cheese which tastes like Comté or Gruyère.

Neighborhood Potter

Dear Family and Friends,

A Visit with the Neighborhood Potter
While Judy and Brad were here we took them to the potters' studio across the street from us. The potter has a gallery in downtown Cuenca on Calle Large. However, my choice is to visit the studio and see the pottery being made.

The studio is located on Mariscal Lamar. We walk because it is so close, but you can get there on buses 11, 4 or 6. There is no off street parking and as you can see in this photo, the front door opens right into the street.

Depending on what is happening when you visit, you may see the artist at the pottery wheel, kneading the clay, firing the pottery in the kiln or even polishing the pottery.

Below is a picture of Judy watching in amazement as the potter is finishing off the clay at the potters wheel using the side of a plastic lotion bottle to get the desired results.



Besides seeing tons of pottery ready for finishing work, you can also see a small select amount of finished work in the gallery. In the past, we have been fortunate enough to purchase pottery directly from the studio.

Here is Brad examining a piece of finished pottery.

While visiting, you should keep your eyes open and look around thoroughly, there is pottery being displayed that is such a joy to discover. Here is a pottery bird hanging in the rafters.
They also have real animals, including a couple of very well behaved dogs, a backyard goose and below is the parrot of the house talking for his Mama.



Judy and Brad headed back to the USA on Saturday. Chuck and I are enjoying the quiet time and spending special time together. Tonight we watched the movie Gandhi. I had not seen it before. If you have not seen it, or even if you have, I highly recommend it.

Love,
Nancy and Chuck

Chilcatortora Tour - Part I

Dear Family and Friends,

(A blog from Chuck)

The other day, while Nancy and Judy were shopping, Brad and I took a one day tour to the countryside to visit an indigenous community, called Chilcatortora. The tour started at the Casa de Mujers on Plaza San Francisco, and cost $33. We traveled by taxi about 45 minutes up the Tarqui river to the community. Their language is Kichwa, which does not look or sound anything like Spanish.

There was a brief introduction and exhibition of traditional music, followed by a tour of the cheese factory (which will be featured in another blog).
Then we were handed off to another guide, Blanca, and embarked on a lengthy hike around the community. What a contrast to the cobble stone streets of Cuenca.















We walked down hill.
















And then we walked back up hill.

















Meanwhile, the ladies prepared a feast for us. There were many fresh locally produced vegetables and, of course, roasted cuy (which we call guinea pig).


















The food was served in a traditional style, all spread out directly on the table cloth, they call this "Pampa Mesa". (If there are too many people for the table, the cloth is spread on the ground.) We ate the cuy with our fingers and the vegetables and rice with a wooden spoon.

After all that hiking and feasting, we were encouraged to take a well deserved nap in the sunshine.



Chuck